Lando Buzzanca died in Rome. The actor died at Villa Speranza where he had been hospitalized for about a month. The last phase of his life was marked by hospitalizations and controversies.
One of the best-known actors and faces of Italian cinema and TV has gone on tiptoe.
He who had partly made his creative signature out of exuberance and sympathy.
A year spent in an Rsa, followed by a stay in hospital and then in a rehabilitation center.
Ailments, falls, illnesses, and a final aftermath of controversy that leaves a sense of nostalgia.
Lando Buzzanca was 87 years old and had a very long career behind him.
Born in Palermo, Buzzanca made his debut in 1961 in
Divorzio all'italiana
by Pietro Germi.
Success comes with
Il merlo male
from 1971, an Italian-style sexy comedy directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile.
Last month, Buzzanca's doctor, Fulvio Tomaselli, denounced the decline of the actor in the RSA where he was hospitalized: "He is 87 years old, but he seems to be 115.
He was already in this state in July. In six months he lost 25 -30 kilograms".
ANSA Agency
The decline of Buzzanca in the RSA, '87 years like 100' - Chronicle
"He is 87 years old, but he seems to be 115. He was already in this state in July. In RSA he lost 30 kg in six months".
(HANDLE)
Buzzanca had been taken to an Rsa last year after the forty-day hospitalization at the Santo Spirito which had become necessary following a
fall in April 2021
.
The partner Francesca Della Valle and the doctor Tomaselli had therefore denounced last November the decline of the actor that occurred during the months of hospitalization in the RSA.
His son Massimiliano had therefore said he wanted to report both "to protect his father and his privacy".
On November 8, the actor was then transferred to the Gemelli Polyclinic following a broken femur, to then be taken to the rehabilitation center where he died.
Famous above all for having embodied the stereotype of the passionate and jealous Sicilian man better than anyone else, even for great directors such as Pietro Germi and Antonio Pietrangeli.
'' I've acted in 110 films - he said -, but from the beginning I've always chosen, I've always wanted to be an actor.
Even when I was a nobody and broke.
I had 500,000 lire in my pocket that my mother had secretly given me, but they ran out quickly, I slept on the street, ate at Caritas, wanted to go to the cinema, made small appearances, but I knew it wasn't enough''.
Gerlando Buzzanca, known as Lando, was born in Palermo on August 24, 1935 into a family of actors.
He studies acting at the famous Sharoff Academy between odd jobs.
He is a waiter but also a gigolo.
At 17 he moved to Rome.
The cinema debut came in 1959 in a historical film, not only for the setting.
This is Ben-Hur, where the actor appears in the small part of a slave.
The right opportunity came in 1961 with Pietro Germi who chose him for the role of Rosario Mule' in Divorzio all'italiana.
The following year Pietro Germi again gave him a large part, that of Stefania Sandrelli's brother in Seduced and Abandoned.
In 1956 Lando married Lucia, a woman with whom he remained for 57 years.
Buzzanca, after Germi's films, decides not to neglect television and participates in various dramas such as La trench.
Slowly the actor begins to create a character of him, that of the provincial lover of women and often not smart.
This recurring mask will also lead him to collaborate with great directors.
In 1963 he appeared alongside Catherine Spaak in Antonio Pietrangeli's La parmigiana playing the dull boyfriend of the protagonist.
Another great turning point in his career came in
1971 with the comedy 'The male blackbird' by Pasquale Festa Campanile with Laura Antonelli.
But the 70s are also those of the television success paired with
Delia Scala in 'Signore e Signora' with the catchphrase 'mi vien che laugh' which Buzzanca spoke of as 'one of the most beautiful things in my life' '.
In the 1974 film The Referee he demonstrates his ability to step into other people's shoes.
Between the end of the Sixties and the Seventies, Lando collaborated several times with yet another great director of his career: Lucio Fulci.
Together the two shoot three films: Operazione San Pietro, Despite appearances and As long as the nation does not know it.
The eighties gave him little space in the cinema, also because for Buzzanca's tastes the drift that the Italian sexy comedy was taking was now excessive.
He makes up for his success on the radio and in the theatre.
One of his best cinematic outings of the decade is in Luigi Magni's Second Pontius Pilate.
Buzzanca returned to the limelight on TV in 2005 with the triumph of the Rai1 miniseries 'My son' born from an idea of Buzzanca himself who plays a policeman, Commissioner Vivaldi,
father of a gay boy (over 8 million viewers and 30%).
He openly right-wing arouses surprises, but it is a triumph.
In 2007 he also received critical acclaim for his interpretation of him in the feature film I Viceré by Roberto Faenza.
Participation in the film guarantees him the victory of a Golden Globe and a nomination for the David di Donatello as best leading actor.
After the successes of Lo scandalo della Banca Romana, Il commissario Vivaldi, La Baronessa di Carini, in the Restauratore he is instead the 'psychic' Basilio.
In 2016 he took part in the eleventh edition of Dancing with the Stars, dancing in tandem with Sara Mardegan.
In 2017, Buzzanca and Carlo Delle Piane play an elderly homosexual couple in the touching film Who will save the roses?.
Buzzanca had two sons, Massimiliano and Mario.
After his wife's death in 2010, he had lost the strength and will to live so much that in 2013 he even tried to take his own life,
not succeeding.
To save him from the abyss was the meeting with his new partner Francesca Della Valle, 35 years younger.
The last phase of his life was marked by hospitalizations and controversies.
After a year in RSA, his partner Francesca Della Valle and the doctor Fulvio Tomaselli reported last November the actor's decline that occurred during the months of hospitalization in RSA.
His son Massimiliano had therefore said he wanted to report both "to protect his father and his privacy".
Then hospitalization at the Gemelli after a fall and transfer to Villa Speranza, where he died.
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